Dan is complex, you know. A shell of sarcasm and self-hate that he shrugs off with a joke or two. It's unhealthy, but he's happy. And if he's happy, then I guess I am too. It's a constant cycle that honestly gets boring after a while.
I'd trade anything to have it back, though.
The small things are what hurt me the most; the way he used to talk when he was tired, the shy smile he greeted me with every morning, his scent that still lingers on my clothes and no matter how much I wash them I can't seem to drive it away.
I haven't slept for days, my little memories swirling around inside my head, keeping me up for hours — tossing and turning until I accept that I just have to lay there and wish for my eyes to shut and my mind to ease.
Waiting. It's a long and painful process that stings if rushed and left if forgotten. My patience is wearing thin, but I still wait. For anything, really. A sign that he hasn't completely cut me out of his life, maybe, but that could be asking too much.
Obviously, family and a few close friends check up on me once in a while. I'm grateful, of course, but each and every time the door knocks or the phone rings there's a small shred of hope that it's him. That he might've come back.
But why would he? He's happy, so I am too.
That's just how it works.
My memories are kind of like a book. They tell a story — a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is an important part to our story, too, mine and Dan's. While he's probably turned the last page, abandoned the ups and downs, the smiles and the heartbreaks, I'm desperately clinging to the last words.
The beginning. Where the novel starts and the wind picks up, where he and I fall in love and fall apart — but that's the end, and at that point in time we couldn't have known that. We were careless but invincible, and together we thought we could take on anything.
The middle is always the best — the fun times, the best memories, the most genuine laughs and the sugar-coated, optimistic outlook on everything. We were unstoppable, us against the world.
But of course, everything runs it's course and dries out in the end; we say our goodbyes but we can barely even look at each other. And my tears hit the paper once again as I reread our story from first person, I continue to wait.
Maybe this isn't the end, though. Maybe I haven't waited long enough, and this is just the start.
Or maybe I overthink things in the middle of the night while I can't sleep, missing his presence as tears roll down my cheeks.
In the chilling silence of our once shared flat, I can feel my heart pounding hard against my ribs and my shaky breath being the only sound.
As I stare at the ceiling, my mind replays one short phrase:
I'm sorry.